File Shredder

Do you have critical data files that you need to permanently destroy? you can use file shredders for this task, but if you're paranoid and don't want to run executables downloaded from untrusted resources, you can simply write your own file shredder, all you need is an IDE (e.g. Visual Studio, Net Beans.. etc.)

File Deletion Concept (OS 101):
The OS does not physically remove deleted files from your hard disk. Emptying your Recycle Bin does NOT protect you at all. Your sensitive files can be recovered, even after you format your hard disk! When you delete a file from Windows, the OS just marks the file as deleted in the file allocation table (FAT), but the data of the file is still on your hard disk, even though not accessable through the system friendly UI. There are many tools available which can let you or others easily recover your sensitive files even after you format your hard disk. Thus, make sure you ALWAYS shred your sensitive files if you plan to sell your PC later on.

A simple analogy would be like adding a new column to a database table to indicate if a record has been deleted, without actually deleting the record from the database. And in the system front-end, fitching only records of which the Deleted column is set negatively.

Technique:
The simplest technique to shred a file, is to overwrite the contents of that file multiple times with junk data before the file is deleted, so that the previous portions of the hard disk drive that were allocated to that file would be actually overwritten and untracable.

Download Executable

Download Source Code

Have a glance at the code
Main Function (DestroyFile) [Tip]: This function could also be implemented in a separate asynchronous thread to keep the main thread and UI responding and interactive with the user while the file is being shredded, because if the file size is too large, then the main thread (including the UI event handlers) will stop responding until the file shredding operation is completely executed.

private void DestroyFile(string filePath)
        {
            try
            {
                FileStream filestream = new FileStream(filePath, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Write);
                long length = filestream.Length;
                StreamWriter streamWriter = new StreamWriter(filestream);
                char[] buffer = new char[length];
                for (long i = 0; i < length; i++)
                {
                    buffer[i] = '0';
                }
                streamWriter.Write(buffer);

                streamWriter.Close();
                filestream.Close();

                File.Delete(filePath);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Error!");
            }
        }

Web Automation - Intro

Did you know that you can automate your daily repetitive tasks that you do on the web, and save yourself time and effort!
This is a very simple automation sample, the automation simulates the user web browsing, I built 2 automation samples:

1. Automate Google Search: will navigate to google website, enter "Dareen Alhiyari" in the search textbox, and then click the search button.
2. Automate My Blog: The second automation will navigate to my blog's "Contact Me" page, and then click on my yahoo email link.

Here's a video demo of the automation:

Download Executable you also need to check Microsoft.mshtml.dll (?)

Download Source Code

You can also build your own toolbar to the browser with your customized buttons, for example you can add a button that will collect all the images in a web page.. whatever comes to your mind!
You can also use this concept to build automated tests for your web applications, simulating the end user browsing activities.

A quick look at the code

In the event handler of the click event of the sub-menu "Automate My Blog", I attach a new event handler to the DocumentComplete event of the WebBrowser, and navigate the web browser to my blog's "Contact Me" page url, and then wait for the event handler to be invoked to complete the automation.

In the sub menu click event handler:

try
{
    this.webBrowser1.DocumentCompleted += new WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventHandler(webBrowser_DocumentCompleted_AutomateMyBlog);
    this.webBrowser1.Navigate("http://dareen-h.blogspot.com/p/contact-me.html");
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Error!");
}

In the WebBrowser document complete event handler, I find the yahoo mail link object, and click on it:

try
{
    IHTMLDocument3 doc = this.webBrowser1.Document.DomDocument as IHTMLDocument3;
    if (doc != null)
    {
        IHTMLElement yahooMail = doc.getElementById("yahoomail");
        if (yahooMail != null)
        {
            yahooMail.click();
        }
    }
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Error!");
}
finally
{
    this.webBrowser1.DocumentCompleted -= new WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventHandler(webBrowser_DocumentCompleted_AutomateMyBlog);
}

Microsoft.mshtml.dll
You will need Microsoft.mshtml.dll that usually ships with IE, to make sure if you have it installed in the GAC, open Start Menu->Run and type assembly then hit enter, the GAC folder will open up, make sure that you have the dll in the dlls list

If you don't find the dll in the list, you may download Office 2003 Update that contains the dll, or if you find it too big for you, you may download it from dll download websites
After you get the dll, drag it and drop it into the assembly folder "%OS Drive%\Windows\Assembly"

CodeProject

Ascii Char/Decimal/Binary Converter

A very simple converter.
Now you can easily read binary :D
"There are only 10 types of people, Those who understand binary, and those who don't."

Download Executable

Download Source Code

Convert characters to decimal and binary ascii code representations, convert decimal numbers to binary numbers and characters of the corresponding ascii code, and convert binary numbers to decimal numbers and characters of the corresponding ascii codes:

CodeProject